Tackling London’s Gangs

The Metropolitan Police Service yesterday launched a new initiative to tackle the problem of violent gangs in London. At its core is a refocusing of Trident Operational Command Unit to include a central Gang Crime Command and to build on the good prevention and enforcement work already undertaken in partnership with local authorities. This briefing highlights the main features of the new approach and alerts members to the implications for boroughs, who will be core partners at a local level.

Overview

Tackling gang criminality and violence has been a core priority of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe since he came to office September 2011. The newly formed Trident Gang Command is the result of a reorganisation of the MPS internal structures. The new Command is designed to be better placed and better resourced to address the challenges of tackling gang crime. The new initiative builds on previous work delivered by the Metropolitan Police, in partnership with the boroughs, that employs prevention initiatives, diversionary provision and targeted enforcement activity.

This approach draws extensively on the experience of Operation Connect and previous anti-gangs initiatives piloted in a number of London boroughs that involve police officers working alongside colleagues from the local authority and other agencies to:

- jointly identify gang members to prioritise enforcement and diversionary activity
- offer a way out of the gang way of life to gang members who engage and accept assistance
- identify future gang members and influence both them and their families away from gangs
- carry out focused proactive police enforcement on the highest risk gang offenders.

Metropolitan Police statistics on gangs

There are an estimated 250 active criminal gangs in London, comprising nearly 5,000 people. Of these gangs, 62 are considered to be ‘high harm’ and commit two thirds of all gang-related crime. It is estimated that this relatively small number of people are responsible for approximately 22 per cent of serious violence, 17 per cent of robbery, 50 per cent of shootings and 14 per cent of rapes in London.

Analysis

The Trident Gang Command will have one thousand officers dedicated to tackling gangs at its disposal, as well as the introduction of local task forces across London. The new Gang Command will retain Trident’s responsibility for the prevention and investigation of shootings, though this will no longer be specific to black communities. The Gang Command will now work more closely alongside boroughs to proactively tackle gang crime. Nineteen boroughs, where gang crime is more prevalent, will now have a dedicated gang crime task force: Brent, Camden, Croydon, Ealing, Enfield, Greenwich, Hackney, Hammersmith and Fulham, Haringey, Islington, Kensington and Chelsea, Lambeth, Lewisham, Merton, Newham, Southwark, Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest, Wandsworth.

The new approach acknowledges, and seeks to build on, the established partnership work with the boroughs and other agencies on prevention and diversion, as well as working with them on identifying gang members in enforcement.

**Borough work on tackling gang crime**

London boroughs have taken a range of approaches to tackling gang crime and some have identified specialist staff to work alongside police colleagues to provide an integrated approach to case managing the most harmful gang members.

In addition to programmes focussed on reducing violence, much of boroughs’ mainstream activity contributes to supporting and protecting communities through safeguarding, youth work, community empowerment, regeneration and housing provision. These include early intervention programmes, work to focus services around families with multiple problems and work to tackle group and gang offending. The net effect of these initiatives is expected to be a reduction of violence in the longer term. Examples of borough work on tackling gangs include:

**The Hackney Gangs Intervention Project** is a partnership that co-locates Hackney police, the council, London Probation Trust and Hackney Homes to share knowledge, skills and information about certain individuals involved in gang activity in the borough and has been instrumental in reducing gun and knife crime in the area.

**London borough of Southwark’s SERVE programme** relocates individuals and families at risk through gang violence. Since 2009, the programme has successfully supported 23 families into more stable housing. The programme also provides support and monitoring and, while supporting the whole family, it also focuses on 14-19 year-olds involved in serious gang violence who have either been victims or offenders. Outcomes include a 20 per cent reduction in violent crime by participants and a reduction in victimisation by 50 per cent while involved in SERVE. The cost of SERVE is around £35,000 per annum. The principles and lessons learned from SERVE have been incorporated into the Safe and Secure scheme.

**Home Visits and Pathways** are two more Southwark projects that enable partner agencies to work strategically together to reduce serious violence and levels of violence associated with gang and group offending in the borough. Pathways has worked with 41 gang members. Of these, 23 have reformed, 12 are currently involved in the Pathways project and six are in custody and will be in the programme upon their release. Southwark’s Home Visits programme goes to the homes of young people identified by police or youth services as being on the fringes of gang activity. It pairs the young person with a mentor and develops a tailored strategy, offering individuals an alternative path back into education and eventually into work. In some instances the programme relocates gang members. The Home Visits programme focuses on 11-17 year-olds. The council has carried out 110 home visits over the last two years.

**Lewisham has a Trilogy + multi-agency team**, which combines enforcement with support for people to exit the gang, and has a close focus on the impact on local communities. Interim analysis suggests that this provision has significantly reduced reoffending of serious violence of the individuals the service has worked with. Lewisham’s work includes Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conferences for victims of serious youth violence. Their primary aim is to prevent re-victimisation and avoid young victims from becoming perpetrators themselves. Initial evaluation highlights a 25 per cent re-victimisation rate compared to a national figure of 58 per cent.

The target client group for Trilogy+ is 13-25 year-olds. The service has worked with a total of 110 young people since inception. In 2010/11, those young people that fully engaged in the programme reduced their offending by 74 per cent and those that partly engaging reduced by 62 per cent, compared to a reduction in reoffending of just 4 per cent for those not engaged.

**Waltham Forest’s Gang Prevention Programme** uses a similar balance between intelligence-led enforcement and offers of support to exit gang life. The support, which is concentrated on those families of most concern, includes practical and therapeutic interventions and includes work with siblings. The council is projected to spend £1.05 million this year and about half of that will be spent on a subset of known gang members and their families. The budget also covers neighbourhood working with community groups training, capacity building etc and local enforcement capacity too.

**Commentary**

The launch of the Trident Gang Crime Command is a significant and welcome contribution to the fight against gang crime. The deployment of a thousand dedicated officers and the establishment of the local task forces across London demonstrates a significant commitment in this area.

As the partnership work between the MPS and boroughs on gangs develops, there will be a need for dialogue at both a pan-London and local level to identify the particular actions and protocols that will be needed for effective joint working between the MPS, individual boroughs and other partners.

Discussions with individual boroughs are expected to cover the opportunities for co-ordination and alignment of local intervention and diversion services. This may raise questions about the availability of resources within boroughs for gang-related responses, and the balance between local and regional approaches. In the current climate, partners will want to focus their efforts on interventions that have been proven to work.

There are a variety of sources of funding for tackling gang crime, including the Ending Gang and Youth Violence fund and the Communities Against Guns Gangs and Knives fund. There is much that could be gained if the funding for this important area of work is streamlined. It is also important that Londoners have their say regarding how resources are allocated. There also needs to be flexibility at a local level to enable to tailoring of locally appropriate intervention.

London Councils will continue to work with the Metropolitan Police, the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime and the boroughs, both through the London Crime Reduction Board and directly, to ensure that every effort is made to tackle gang crime in London.

**Author:** Rangan Momen, principal project and policy officer (T: 020 7934 9816)

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**Links:**

- Met launches major crackdown on gang crime (MPS website)

**This member briefing has been circulated to:**

Portfolio holders and those members who requested policy briefings in the following categories: Crime and public protection